A Study of the Distribution of Sample Coefficient Alpha with the Hopkins Symptom Checklist: Bootstrap versus Asymptotics.

Yuan, Ke-Hai; Guarnaccia, Charles A.; Hayslip, Bert, Jr.

Educational and Psychological Measurement, v63 n1 p5-23 Feb 2003

Studied the sample coefficient alpha for each of the five subscales of the Hopkins Symptom Checklist (HSL; L. Derogaitis and others, 1974) in a sample of 419 adults. Findings show that the normal-theory-based distribution has a systematic bias in describing the behavior of the sample coefficient alpha. (SLD)